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Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 15:29:27 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: <LIBALP>
Subject: Re: new fall comedy sensation
Over the weekend I experienced several comedy sensations, but they had
nothing to do with television, or drugs, or sex, or even Foss.
This concludes today's anecdote. On to other matters:
I decry the use of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing names on the net.
However, I also decry the attempt (successful, apparently) by Scott
Lesser to banish ai hermes pendragon from the list. Traditionally,
we never openly suggest the taking of powders to list members. Not
that I'm opposed to change, but I prefer a more constructive approach.
To take a recent example, did we Libguys say, "Scott Lesser, we're going
to run you out of town you come here talkin' like a yankee sheep-pimp"?
No, certainly not. We spoke in vague, dull-hatchet-shaped tones of
the decapitation of various parties. We (here's the key) LEAVE ROOM
FOR IMPROVEMENT.
Think of it as "off-screen space". Pollux's work is rich in this.
Lack of it will be Cheating's undoing.
ap
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Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 11:13:42 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Cuthbert C. Cuthbert" <LIBWCA>
Subject: Re: Los Pixies
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:24:40 -0500 from <LESSER>
On Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:24:40 -0500 Scott Lesser said:
>
>
>>I've been working on a new character, sort of a post-proto-punk
>>disaffected sky-god-cum-funk-meister, with a touch of Bobby-Fischer-
>>early-seventies-free-floating-angst.
>
>Hasn't this been done before? I could have sworn there was a tv movielast
>year, with Michael J. Fox playing the part of...
>
That's right. Michael J. Fox frequently plays me, as he feels it enhances
his appeal with the washed-out beatnik intelligensia segment of the market.
He played me in the last forty-five minutes of "Back to the Future 5," and
again in scattered bits of "Doc Hollywood." Remember that television show
he was on, back in the eighties? "Family Feud," something like that? Well,
on that show, whenever he leaned back in his chair and spit ove his left
shoulder, it was a secret sign that he was playing me. Sort of like when
Carol Burnett used to floss her teeth to let her grandmother know she was
getting hosed regularly.
You know that catatonic black guy in "Apocolypse Now" that comes out of the
foxhole and waxes Charlie with the mortar, and has this zomboid expression
on his face and says something grimly sardonic to Emilio Estevez' dad? He
was playing me, too.
Bill
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Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 16:24:08 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: BoltBoy@HEART.OF.THE.MATTER
Subject: Re: Room for "Improvement" *wink wink*
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
27 Sep 1993 15:02:23 -0500 from <00bcpalmer>
On Mon, 27 Sep 1993 15:02:23 -0500 <00bcpalmer> said:
>a reader writes:
>>We (here's the key) LEAVE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT.
>
>I know all of you often think you're too lever for me, but I did indeed
>catch the allusion to top-rated comedy series "Home Improvements" inthis
>post. So there!
>
>Brent Palmer <formerly Pollux>
Brent, we aren't none of us too lever for you. We are far, far stupider
than you could ever dream of being, because we have purged our minds
of every foul and impure influence, up to but not necessarily including
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the 1991 comedy smash "The Mighty Ducks."
You could never do this. You are too attached to knowing the answers
to math questions, and think that girls will like you because you got a
1520 on the GRE. They will never name a hockey team after you, as they
did The Mighty Ducks.
BoltBoy, your One-Stop Source for Cleansing Violence
========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 17:49:31 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Cuthbert C. Cuthbert" <LIBWCA>
Subject: Re: Proposal and Subinitiative 56-LT3551, Article D, Sub Ro
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
27 Sep 1993 17:41:54 EDT from <EJFORD>
On Mon, 27 Sep 1993 17:41:54 EDT E.J. Ford said:
>I swear, Arthur, 'ol Buddy, that guy, asking if he was once more "in-
>clan." The nerve of that guy. You know, if you got to ask, you
>just will never know. Am I right? Sure I am. Look at alla them
>kids trying to get on this list, fer cry-eye. I mean, if we don't
>let none of them punks hang around here, we just can't go around
>acting like "oh, you're ok" when we're just talking to just anybody,
>now can we? Course not.
>
>Well, I 'll sign off now, love you, how're the kids?, have a really
>nice day.
>
Put my X in the column marked "Parker, Arthur LeeAnn" on this one.
Newcomers to this list should be insulted brutally, humiliated
ritually, and generally made to face the stark, unfriendly fact
that they are entirely unworthy to stand in the company of the
likes of Melanie Willis and My Esteemed Self. If they can be
driven from the room in tears, so much the better - after all,
most of them are worthless, mewling turds, and not stout, stalwart
defenders of Truth and mavens of all that is Fashionable, like
Melanie Willis and My Esteemed Self. They should not, however,
be directly asked to remove themselves. It's a natural winnowing
process, y'see; and if you can't strip a man (in the generic sense,
of course) of the last vestage of his dignity and force him to
huddle naked in a neural attic room, forced to concede his last
chance at ever, under any circumstance, attaining a degree of
cool even approaching that at which people like Melanie Willis
and my esteemed self routinely reside, well then: where is thy
victory? Where is thy Sting? Huh? Huh?
My Esteemed Self
=============================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 21:48:55 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: misc continuations divers & sundry loose ends
Naught of the foregoing could compare with the triumphal entry ofConsolida-
ted Ground, soon Terrestrial, Transport into its ultimate mark or earthly
[pre-]Om-inence, the mystic NewAgean seaport of Port Jerfferson which, in
glory days of yore had attracted atventurist youth, and opportunist youth
taggingalong beside, from *yards around*, to savor the quaaludic games of
"Port." Alcoholic beverage, then and to this day, carried with it, quite
aside from the reek of legality, the age minimum for the sales wherefrom
such or said, who cares, that legality was implemented as it still is,requi-
ring illegal ID to savor the Experience of abiding within the Law.
What the great Huizinga called "Man's ludic instinct," we excuse thoseborn
too soon for repronominalization as we do the trespass constituted byfailure
of imagination to envisage that "ludic" had a future more properlyQuaaludic,
as had I, given wife number one, the Californistic person, having broughthome
a 'lude onceuponatime, whereof I partook and, before there could transpirethe
vaunted effect upon potencies of one or another sort, I underwent ultrarapid
morphification, as was the anticipated effect of the substance upon Normals,
let alone narcoleptics, in the days before the fake, phony, fraudulentaphrodi-
siacal potentialities of the substance had been bruited about by the Sons of
the Lie, bani belial.
All Drugs I have known, as a practically faultless generalization, have
worked Wrong. This is my only point of consonance with Republicanism; butpart
company, I do, over countermeasures; in that, rather than JUST SAY NO, which
is stupid, one prefers a Truth In Dopeification Law. With teeth.<aaaargghhhh>
ouch! Enforced by the Illegal and Criminal Drug Administration, an agencyunder
the general direction and supervision of the Ministry of Illicit,Clandestine,
and Secretive Affairs. [Trans. note: Pres Bill Clinton has established the
latter by Executive Order in naive expectation that Hillary would be "thelast
to know" ha ha. *Well*.] While we're at it, a Truth in Sex Act withEnforcement
Powers of the most stringently ferocious sort, so that I need not turn
Ayatollah after all; I'm no good at school anymore and it's 30 years to get
your Ayatollah's Degree; but consider the diminution, will ya, of the Sin on
the streets for the Revo Guard to annoy.
In ancient mystic Port Jefferson, primordial whaling port, fullcomplement
of blubber visible day and night on land, southern terminus of theBridgeport
Ferryboat, closest to a touch of crass that a couple "going out," used toput
it in the Polite Language, when euphemism was in flower and Statusdisplaylost
its head, Consolidated Ground Transportation Incorporated acquired bymerger,
leveraged by not-quite-investment-grade bonds, CALL-A-CAB Taxi. In formerStony
Brook the former Tootsie's, now Lindy's, was considered by the ExpandedBoard
with the Bankers, as was fitting for this major corporate giant,INSUFFICIENTLY
TAXIISH by contrast with the nobly TAXI-APPROPRIATE Call-A-Cab. Dictating
without slightest hesitation whatever the forthwith & instantaneous mergingof
the Port Jefferson and Stony Brook catchment areas for the moving vehiclesof
the ex-copcar-fleet, each and every motorious vehicle thrown off the forcefor
cowardice in the line of duty. A wholly owned subsidiary of sufficient
magnitude that minorities - there are none in Suffix County - and *women*are
encouraged to apply. Whence the ultracautious if unblemished-record driverwho
got me to Dr A's 15 minutes late Wed, 22 Sep, 1993, 14:28ish, not the 14:15
latest possible allowable second.
For dispatchers, only women need apply; who else can keep their headswhen
testosterone-laden manly men are losing theirs where 30 vehicles nighlyprowl
the streets, too wired to remember their own names, let alone destinationsor
"zones," as they quaintly call the pecuniary remuneration due, less tip.
Empires have been built in the Empire State from the prototypical Robert
Livingston, mighty purveyor of marijuana to HM Navy, and if it be true that
an army travels on its stomack, a navy travels on marijuana; those miles of
hempen (=OE haenep; fr L cannabis Gr kannabis) rope, the sqare yards, acres
of canvas (=L cannabis) fluttering in the tempest-toss't wind at full sail
to meet greet defeat the Spanish Enemeeee.
Yes kiddies, what they called *naval stores* in your kiddie history ofthe
Province, later State, of New York, was marijuana. The USSR was not alone.What
was galling to the early armenians was the Navigation Acts, of 1656 and1661,
which prohibited the manufacture of rope or finished goods of that nature;by
Law under the Mercantilist System exported raw and resinous to the eleven
Roperies of Liverpool, where nimble fingers of female celt, too stoned tosee
but for the Red Thread, whence "runs like a red thread through" exemplumgratia
armenian history. Without our glorious marijuana, all the hemp in Hempstead,
how indeed doth Britannia rule the waves. (Robert Livingston turned a profita
bit beyond what the Law allowed; his partners in this at least slightlyillegal
venture were HM Governor of the Province and, more notoriously, CaptainKidd.
These two, but not Robert Livingston, greatest Feudal Lord of the Provinceof
New York if not the whole of British North America. Membership, as LouGerstner
says in our own day, hath its privileges.)
And it came to pass that another Empire Builder, Alexander Hamilton,arrived
at the scene of the New Nation, to grab such moneys as were to be had. Sogreat
was this man that on the $10 bill his likeness betrays no sign he was not
white. His vision: Capitalism in One Country; his method: forced-draftindust-
rialization. As with most such schemes, 'tis best to shoot 'en up with a
syringeload of Nationalism: "The American System" his exact verbiage. From
small beginnings in Paterson NJ he progressed by the fateful year 1798 tothe
opening of the New York Ropewalk.
I have reported in depth on the White Terror unlooshed upon the land in
1798, when no imaginary Illuminatus, however tenuous his actual existence or
even as an indubitable Hallucinatus, was sought high & low; rumouredCAUGHT,
always lies; and summary if fictitious justice meted out as reported in
Federalist newspapers whose commitment was not to Truth, fit to print ornot.
That fortifications against French invasion proved useless when the Enemy
was at length made to be the British has been amply chronicled by Winston
Smith; far be it for me to elaborate on this digression at this time.There's
plenty of time: I'M BACK, AND HAVE TRANSCENDED SENSE-MAKING. iT'S ALL OVER;
I'M GONNA RELAX AND ENJOY THE DAYS, WEEKS, MAYBE EVEN AS LONG AS MONTHSWHICH
REMAIN! <hee hee> You've had it, young smelts.
Marijuana for industry. Marijuana for Victory At Sea. Marijuana for the
shirt off your back.
---------
The driver from the SuperX in Smithtown back to this building wasRogerian.
Nondirective therapy.
"Good September we are having."
"For September, it is just what you would expect for the ninth month."
"Some people don't like it, find just a bit too much snap in the air."
"At this time of September, it does verge upon Octoberish, does it not."
"Summer bout over."
"Quite so, indeed, the date on Long Island Newsday is full fathom Wed, 22
Sep, 1993. This the last day of summer or the day after the last day ofsummer.
Think the latter. So this is the day we gotta return all the Summer Fun
Thingies back to the Staw."
"Me, I don't buy summer fun Thingies."
"But izza new TV season. Look here, the TV Pages, Boris Yeltsin showtonight
with rave reviews it got about how Boris Yeltsin is "best drunk standup TV
series comedian since Jackie Gleason."
"Me, I don't watch television much."
"Don't need television, except grosso modo, you know? Me, I watch on
RUSSIA@[.BITNET]. Time was, top guy over there was a nasty, no good for
fun, you know, no matter how fu..., excuse me, no matter how *egregiously*
weird. Like Alexander III, the reason I am in your cab today, to you he'sThe
Spriit of the Czar Lives On, but to my People, the Paranoid Peoples of theEvil
Empire when they had real Evil Emperors, he was, he was, man, he was soevil,
tellin ya."
"I'm hearin' ya. Whatever you say. Go on."
"Tonight, get this, there is a special hookup of Larry King Live withRELAY
which in this part of the country is MASRELAY@UBVM, about Russia,Presidential
concerns on, with pardon the expression INPUT from the allarmenian youth
audience participation participating in complaints about the 18-year-old
drinking age for vodka."
"I hear ya."
"Okay, here's a quick quiz. For $5 additional tip, WHERE IS ABKHAZIA? WHO
IS SHEVERNADZE, NOT WAS BUT IS, SHEVERNADZE?"
"Abkhazian autonomous region, for three thousand years bone of contention
between Abkhazian tribals and ethnolinguistic Georgians, previouslyLazicans,
previouldy to that, Colchians, export of Golden Fleece and gorgons for zoosof
Greece...."
"You're really, uh, UP on stuff, gotta handit toya."
"Gotta be, the passengers insist on it. Take lotsa speed, hit the books.
Like Justinian The Great. Never sleep."
[to be further continued]
Daniel A. Foss
<dfoss@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 17:53:41 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: Zmills@
Subject: WHAT IS THIS, EXACTLY?
I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a discussion
list dealing with the work of Dr. Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and
other great, paradigm-breaking thinkers. Instead, I find a hideous
mish-mash of trash and obscenity. Juvenile puerilty is NOT a new
way of thinking, Mr. Hug-a-Bear. Death threats, severed heads and
incoherent babble will not get us out of the ontological mess we're
in. Or don't you all care? You can go on playing this inane game
for the rest of your lives, but unless I see something worthwhile
very soon, it will be without me.
Shape up.
Dr. Zachary Mills
Dept. of Sociology
University of Minnesota
"Don't blame me, man - I didn't do it"
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Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 17:21:31 -0500
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: 00bcpalmer
Subject: Re: WHAT IS THIS, EXACTLY?
To: Multiple recipients of list FNORD-L<FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
A bonified doctor writes:
>I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a discussion
>list dealing with the work of Dr. Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and
>other great, paradigm-breaking thinkers.
Your well-stated concrens deserve a serious response.
Part of what you are witnessing is the after effect of the philosophies
of Leary and Anton Wilson. Ergo, where do we go from here? After you read
them, and give yourself over to their ideas -- then what? If you had dropped
acid, perhaps you would realize that the "mish-mash of trash and obscenity"
you speak of is a meta-language used to express irony at the situation of
being beyond the paradigm which Leary, as in _Simulations of God_, broke.
Furthermore, I have seen much much much less obscenity on this list than in
any of Wilson's works, including _Cosmic Trigger_. The only reason you don't
think we are discussing Leary et al, is smiply because you don't think weare.
Personally, I'd say you missed the boat on what these guys are saying, and
you thought FNORD was some neocabaret fashion mall for thinkers. I'll ask
Leary about it when I see him in a month, but ya see, the knowing is the
important thing, ... not how it's fucking expressed.
respectfully, a concerened burnout, <Pollux> Brent Palmer
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Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 18:15:46 CDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: ARTHUR'S.FEMININE.SELF@SPRINGB.BITNET
Subject: REPLY TO MELANIEMELANIEMELANIE
MISTER ROLLINS SIDLES UP TO ME AND LISPS:
>
Ah, Melanie, you hot little bitch. If only had a heart, a brain,
the noive. But you don't exist. You are simply Arthur getting in
touch with his "feminine self". Bill knows this. That's why he
pretends to be you. But that's because Bill likes to pretend to be
Arthur getting in touch with his "feminine self" - pretending to be
just comes with the territory (you should forgive the expression).
But it won't work. We know you're really just Arthur in a dress.
Cease To Exist
Before We Begin Popping Your Virtual Bra Strap,
Merciful Lee Dickens
No Stranger To Reality
***COMMENTS FROM OTIS REGRETS, MISS; 09/28/93 18:15
Your turgid conjectures as to my identity are hardly the point. I condemned
the puerile nature of some of the material submitted to this list, as Iwould
now also condemn your blatant tactic of reviling myself as an underhand and
dishonest means of bolstering your point were it not so evident that you
have no point to make and hence engage in such buffoonery for its sakealone.
If you disagree with me, pray do me the honour of presenting your
argumentation in a judicial fashion rather than resorting to superfluous
raillery.
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Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 15:26:38 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: BINGO@CECILS.FOILED.EXPLOITS.LTD
Subject: Re: Clarifications & such
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 28 Sep 1993 15:15:30 EDT from <AFREEMAN>
Dear Ms. Freeman: I have invented a machine I would like to patent. It is madeof 3 gallons of water, a comb with some of the teeth broken, 5 pounds of flax,and a nuclear-electronic transistor radio. It is very useful in the preventionof the completion of little assignments. I gave the only one to Dr. Foss, butwhen I make another, I will send you a detailed drawing, as photographydisrupts the operation of my little device.
confidentially,
Bingo d'Squalified
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Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 16:24:21 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: BINGO@CECILS.MILK.OF.HUMAN.KINDNESS
Subject: THE SHOES THAT BITE, THE TONGUES THAT CATCH
Dear Dr. Foss, Where is the life and the humor?
truly,
Bingo
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 17:16:09 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: it's where...
...the yellow went. At least will require much practice. Maybe nothing will
suffice. In a mess like I'm in, you just don't sit down and knock off the
funny pages for the kiddies.
Normals like you what nothing like this happens to will ever get it. At
least trying out that inferior effort, which flattened me from the exertion,
was a start. There will be more starts. Maybe starts is all you get. This
cannot be helped, I am sorry for all the loyal readers who read the balloons
in the cartoons, the fleas in the trees, so faithfully all those years. Who
grew up to be better than they thought I was. As an honourable obsessive-
compulsive, I live by a code of conduct; rarely is my toothbrush, invariably
Crestish, Mint Flavourful (if all else fails then Gel), far from my jacket
pocket. This is double-duty (or double-shift as you like), moonlightingafter
Paranoid day is done.
Among our select band, ever suspicious of each other as all objects of
suspicion have longsince abandoned us, our motto is, "If at first thou
succeedest not, ever try try again and yet again." Foss even applied the
ethic to the programming of high-level languages, yea verily, evenAssembler;
always there had been the hope, the trust, the faith that the Compiler would
see things elsewise next time.
You have naught to fear except doubled yea redoubled effort.
For old times sake,
Daniel A. Foss, who says,
"Never say die after passing on."
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 21:24:14 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: professor zachary mills up to a point
Salutations to Professor Zachary Mills, Professor of Sociology; why, even
I used to be a sociologist; but why live in the pest. It is, nevertheless,
recumbent upon this writer, as a mural obbligato, to consider his position
as a sociological analysis, wherein it shortcomes, regrettably: Why? Mills
has taken a normative-idealist position. That is:
Given that FNORD-L has as its ostensible purpose to represent, to serve
as refuge and hothouse for, soi-disant and self-styled and otherwise cracked
New Ways of Thinking, where Thinking is a highly positively loaded usage,that
is, so long as the thinking is thunk in an acceptably approximate mimicry of
what passes for Thought, which is a Cognitive Thingie in terms of ourprevail-
ing set of culturally defined, which is to say, ethnocentric, categories,which
as in any culture have imparted to them spurious time-immemoriality....Whoa,
what in the good name of social science are you talking about, Foss, yousaid
you were a phony but not until now did the full extent of your phoninesssink
into my head like the brick it is....!
Very simple example. What is the first characteristic of the Cognitive?
It's solitary. The magic number you get from the test, as opposed to buying
a three digit number from the New York State Lottery, which sells such three
digit numbers under the brand name of The New York State Numbers, and a lot
cheaper they are, too, compared to what the Clinical Psych tester or the
Psychometrician charges for a number of the same number of digits or even
fewer, is part of your individuated personalized organismic essence. It's
YOU. It's how you are better than somebody stupider, and by EXACTLY HOWMUCH,
the Exactly part being very important insofar as this is Capitalism, wherewe
fetishistically measure and store valuable quantities else quantities ofvalue.
What is the second characteristic of the Cognitive? It is sedentary. You
sit there and cognize. This is good for the Jews; and though Wechsler had no
idea when he seized control of the Cognitive for the Jews who, as late as1960,
were 55% of the Clinical Psychologists, and among the Jews, of course, the
practice of Clinical Psychology represented the Dregs of Jewish Professional
"my-son-the-doctor-a-Professional-Man-with-an-office-of-his-own"-ism, onlythe
slightest cut above Dentists, that the Chinese would hit the bigtime off the
same Midnight Raid whereby Wechsler stole the Cognitive from the antisemite
Terman; and which incidentally also left the latter's partner in crime, Karl
Pearson, to diddle away the rest of his national life as a 100% allarmenian
correlating correlation coefficients on his fingers.
Neither Jews nor Chinese are prominent in basketball, football, andsuchlike
similar self-scoring Continuous Performance Tasks (which the racists call
Cullud People's Time, but that's hatespeech). Those who are good at reading
kaleidescopically shifting patterns continually changing, who shame theJews,
latterly also the Chinese, with perceptual-motor coordination, turn out with
shamefully low Magic Numbers, is that not great for the Jews (andincidentally,
Our Glorious Allies whose subordinate position in our New World Order(remember
when Old Adolph, in Krautland, 1933-1945, was satisfied with plain old New
Order, as are the fascists down Indonesia way)? Of course, the goyim, I am a
racist because I am the product of a racist society, the goy-momzerim who,
as you know, sociologically, *own* this great land, this armenia, of ours,
do not need Magic Numbers, which those with high Magic Numbers allegewithout
proof are heritable, only what is heritable is Thinking Upper Middle, as the
Upper Middle recognizes Thinking.
Your goy momzer, on the contrary *inherits the money and the securities*,
inherits title to armenia, in other words, so has *no need whatever* forMagic
Numbers and any Thinking that goes with it, allegedly, ostensibly, or byrumor.
Just think, I'd-a been Normal, like Professor Zachary Mills, who is funny,he
doesn't LOOK JEWISH, what was it before? I'd-a been bought and sold like sow
bellies by the capitalist class, I got no time here to explain how and whywe
got the capitalist class, but They fired the working class, and all thatclass
contradiction stuff is Over, see, but is it not all written in the Book of
ANTHRO-L@UBVM, the Book of PSN@csf.Colorado.edu, the Book ofWSN@csf.Colorado.
edu, and Chronicles I and II, better known to you as HISTORY@UBVM? Perhapsthe
Scripture has not come down to us, but I don't think so; the Mills ofZachary
grind slowly, but the grind up extremely small bits for inconsequential
publications of impeccable Professionalism, right? And if I'd-a been Normal,
like you, I'd-a done exactly the same thing, since in armenia, "the landthat
we love, stand beside her, and guide her, from the rocks that will fall from
above," the meaning and purpose of existence is one thing, which is becoming
Upper Middle, unless you already ARE Upper Middle, and if you have got that,
all that's left is Owning armenia, which you aint ever gonna do beyondwhatcha
got in TIAA-CREF. All I've said so far is unexceptionally True, right?
What is the *third* characteristic of the Cognitive? You got lots tochoose
from. For instance, the Cognitive is always de-eroticised, with the tiniest
crack opened for criticism of the fine and cultural arts. Look at this room.
This room, which is windowless, has a computer let you in and out, and has
work-ethic wallpaper, high-productivity paintings of boids on bluebackground,
and slate-gray desk tops on beige desks topped up with beige computers with
white on black screens excepting only the bloodred CMNDLINE. <ugh>Nighmarish.
Great preparation for Later Life, the Real World, Human Capital Formationpart
where the chips are cashed in, all the rumoured or imaginary stuff you aretold
of by Full Professors With Tenure who are already living in the closestcapit-
alism allows to cloud cuckoo land.
Which is why they wanna run me outta town and I am psychically unable to
write the funny pages for FNORD-L.
It is a matter of record, that is, I said it already, that there is a New
Central Contradiction of Capitalism which people like you are gonna pay no
attention to on account of a sociological macrotheorist's greatest and most
convincing qualification is being already dead. Next best is not knowingwhat
is in the book means but having such an International Reputation that youjust
gotta read, say, all 1200 pages of Jurgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative
Action and even understand it which the author does not and does not even
care. Now, if you have accomplished the titanic feat of understnadingbackwards
and forwards the blue volume and the orange volume of the Theory ofCommunica-
tive Action, are you gonna stand there and tell Serious People that yourtime
was Thrown Out, that you found out what you suspected to begin with which is
that there was not a goddam thing to be got from this most monumental piece
of todas nadas since Parsons' The Social System? Never. On a smaller scale,
suppose you teach Contemp Soc Theory, and you have got to teach Giddens. You
explain to those moldy young minds what Structuration is. While every second
Knowing In Your Guts that if Giddens knows what Structuration is, and itmeans
the same as what it did to begin with, he is intellectually stagnant and he
might as well have called in sick for the next thirty years. If however asis
more likely he means something different by it from the last book and so on
looking backward from his current ideation to its roots in precursortheories
he wrote when you were a mere kid, then it matters nothing if Structuration
ever meant anything, which is a great solace and consolation that you arenot
as stupid as those who believe it means something now or did in the past at
least, and such people certainly think *you* are stupid.
But in the end there are Numbers, your shelf groans with statisticalpackage
manuals, a new manual for every diddle they do to the basic Thingie.Statisti-
cal packages are of two kinds, those which have semicolons and those whichdo
not. The former also use THEN in the IF statement, not counting thesubsetting
IF. Are you not glad you know this. What kind of new way of thinking doesthis
take? About as much as getting bombed in the local singles bar which inStony
Brook is called the Park Bench which unlike every other organism everresident
in this place I have never been inside.
Suppose, now, somebody comes up with a new way of what you would consider
thinking. The Broad Masses, the very hapless schleps you are trying toliberate
because that is the Liberal, specifically sociological, way, are going toget
bored silly, this having been fixed by a lifetime of having been told theyare
not as Cognitive as you, which is why it is just and humane that, unlikeyou,
they do nearly all the woik for practically none of the money. Sure, youwork
hard, you tell the world how hard you work your *** off, sitting around,doing
computery things, consuming culture, scribbling red ink on equally illegible
Blue Books, and as the Californians say, "an' stuff." And of course reading
printed matter. Praised be, you are a faculty member, on account of, youknow
what the armenians call reading a book in plain sight during so-calledWorking
Hours? Doing Nothing, is what.
All right, we have this Grandiose Theory of the Nature of Things inGeneral.
But Things in General are too obscure and opaque for the likes of the Broad
Masses to care about That Kind of thinking. They will indeed be free, andthat
includes the all-important sense of Without Pecuniary Cost which you never
thunk of in your Thinking, but you will not recognize what goes on in their
heads as Thought Processes.
To review, and this is on the test, if a normative idealist says, You All
Shoulda Done This, when they are all doing some other thing, what is the
Problem? The problem, as a *good* sociologist, not saying I am one, ofcourse,
sees it is to question the assumption, not just question it but throw it out
the window, according to which the Broad Masses, whereof we have a small and
unrepresentative sample, admittedly, are Doing Everything Wrong.
The supporting evidence is in an outfit called<Leri@gossip.pyramid.com,
where Thinking is a dirty word. They have not to be sure outgrown thesilliness
anent Experience, but they are young yet, unlike me, 53; I don't know aboutyou
but they gave you a mature adult's job anyhow. Which makes you obsolete.Open
your mind or blow your head off, already.
Daniel A. Foss,
former PhD, human garbage, and
unmember of the American Sociological
Association since they cancelled my card
in 1978. Also, your class enemy by reason
of envy.
========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 04:40:38 -0500
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: 00bcpalmer
Subject: my fifth letter to Whale O' Fish
Dear Proprieters of Whale O' Fish,
This is my fifth attempt to ask you to mend your ways. I have been a
patron of your establishment for several hours and still you are not at all
selling what I would expect you to. An advertisement I read said that yousold
"fresh fish". Well, I am 29 years old, and I can tell you that I have seenno
"fresh fish" at Whale O' Fish. Neither at your wharf store nor at the shopnear
my mother's house in Tynmilsilby.
In response to my previous complaints, you have cited everythingfrom
agism to size-ism to explain away my sincere and highly thoughtful whining.To
top it all off, you have a new boy behind the counter who speaks Creole, and
your shellfish are naught but the claws. Where is it in my contract o' lifeO
Whale O' Fish, what clause says that I, the customer, must play Santa Clausto
your sophomorocity? Emphasis on the "moro" which is Latin for, shall we say,
dim-witted?!
Finally, I have my own rod and tackle. I can go out and catch my own
fish. I don't need you. But I'd rather complain that you don't have fishthan
catch my own, and frankly, J. Alfred Prufrock-types like myself are tooscared
of those choppy seas to venture out in them because I do not think themermaids
will sing to me, or the Nixies, or even the faeries.
So, in conclusion, I am the customer and I am always right. 1) fire
the Creole, 2) sell fresh fish because that is what you're there for, and 3)
when are you going to start carrying lottery tickets? I want to be amillion-
aire, even though I am already rich in off-screen space.
With Humility and Etiquette combined for double the flavor,
and a dash of the milk of human Rodney Kingness,
a concerned shopper, and I'm really really smart, too.
b<p>
p.s. do we come here often?
========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 05:02:38 -0500
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: 00bcpalmer
Subject: Please Read This
To: Multiple recipients of list FNORD-L<FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
I am not certain who I am addressing, but I have just arrived backfrom
Australia where I had been awarded a Fulbright fellowship at the Universityof
Melbourne. Apparently, a student has been using my account.
At this point, I have no idea what this student has been writing in
my name, but I can assure you I would never mis-spell the word "proprietor".
Furthermore, several of my letters to a local fish shop have gone unanswered
because they were spooled to you, rather than to FJORD@UBVM. This is mostdis-
tressing to me as I am a patriot and, specifically, a Daughter of theAmerican
Revolution. Please send me information on how I may be non-involved in your
cadre. I have only read the letter from the Foss fellow and he reminds metoo
too terribly much of Carl Sagan. I assure you Mr. Foss, as a Fulbrightfellow,
I have most certainly "awakened and smelled the cosmic dust," speaking of
which, the cereal Lucky Charms was not available in Australia. I might aswell
take this opportunity to inform fellow sojourners before I return toShakesper@
UTORONTO that Lucky Charms is banned in Australia because the governmentthere
believes it is naught more than frosted, malted oat dust and puffy sugarthing-
ees. Much like my discourse is becoming I fear!
and now, from _Twelfth Night_ by the Bard of Avon:
When that I was and a little tiny boy.
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But I don't suppose this list is really *for* Shakespeare. So few,if
you will pardon me saying so, think he makes any sense atoll.
Barbara Ctrogvac-Palmer
Dept. of Very Small Things in Big Packages
Boston State University
========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 10:23:28 CDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: Merciful Lee Dickens <DICKENS>
Subject: I CAN SEE NOTHING NOW THE RAIN HAS GONE
THE YOUNG SCOUT GIBBERS OBSCENITIES IN MY NAME:
>
Hey!
WAIT A MINUTE...
Lemme see that address again...
Who the fuck teaches Sociology in >MINNESOTA< ???
I fear this entity does not in fact exist, gentlemen (and you, too,
Honey), but is yet another insidious ploy by that master of disguise,
Cuthbert, to wreak havoc in our carefully-constructed dialogue
cathedral!
Let's peel back the beret and have a look inside - wutta yasay?
RAW and Lilly would've wanted it that way!
Charge,
Merciful
*** Comments from PARFUM POUR HOMME; 09/29/93 10:25am:
This abomination was not of my composition and I have privately addressed
C.C. Cuthbert so that my good name is not made filthy in his eyes by such
unjustified accusations of misconduct. Dr. Mills continues to enjoy my
wholehearted support, and, I think, reciprocates my esteem, so much so that
he has consented to accompany me this evening on a fishing trip, myself to
provide the sandwiches and he the bottled water. If the perpetrator of this
somewhat shoddy outrage would care to meet us behind the surveyors' cabin in
the quarry on the way there, we may have this matter out for honor, blood,
and country, before the pesky hoodlum who apes me sets a tiresome precedent.
READY TO SHAKE HANDS OR THROW FISHES AS NEED DICTATES,
Merciful
========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 12:18:45 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: General Mills <LIBALP>
Subject: Re: ALARUMS
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 29 Sep 1993 08:32:54 EDT from <LIBWCA>
On Wed, 29 Sep 1993 08:32:54 EDT Cuthbert C. Cuthbert said:
>sackcloth. You'll have to find your own ashes. Uniatz will provide air
>support if things get hairy. See if you can get in touch with Cheating.
Pardon, sir, but I believe Uniatz agreed to provide hair support should
things get airy. We had, please recall, approached her about providing
heir support, which led to the Cheating problem to which you so
humorously refer here. "Get in touch with Cheating" indeed! I laughed
so hard I swallowed my monocle.
regards,
gm
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 18:10:06 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: state-dependent zacharies & other soc of science epistemo
...logical questions:
Professor Zachary Mills professes Sociology at the University ofMinnesota.
More modestly titled Professor Zachary Myers, one presumes, *instructs* in
Anthropology at the not immensely far distant university of Wisconsin. This
betokens fraudulence not to be lightly taken, easily borne, without evidence
to the contrary; given the presumption of fakery in FNORDishcrimenimprudence,
as traditionally known. That one or both of these have had bestowed uponthem
the identity-changes customary among the Faithful as alleged in Antiquityfor
new Converts to the then-nonexistent FNORDish faith, and despite the best
efforts of Emperor Julian The Apostate, 361-363, nonexistent to this daythough
tithe is everywhere as always promptly paid, this indignity given by the
Wisconsin gentleman as "Poogy Hug-a-Bear," is intolerable. It must stop.This
offense redoubles, yes, retriples the fakery going round even in this petty,
pitifully small corner of the sprawling FNORDish community; and theoverriding
reason why it must cease forthwith is, while in principle I deny suchchimeri-
cal baloney as the Soul, the True Self, the Personality, the Personhood, the
Person, and last and least, Essential Humanity, I am *childishly gullible*
hence get fooled every time. Just ask HUNIATZ when she was just small.
Fly, then, under false colours as you wish, any false colours so long as
they are false, noting that, in the days of tall ships, when seamen were at
their highest as explained earlier, false and true colours alike were made
of the same fine Long Island Marijuana; and not for all the hemp inHempstead
would it have been had otherwise. But to Thine Own Fraud be True: Tominimize
the probably unavoidable confounded confusion inflicted upon me, on accountof,
given my mental retardation in social behavioral acquisition alreadymentioned,
though I forget on which list, I cannot tell a lie, spare my wasting assetsby
making life simple for he who after all is the only Spiritual Leader andVisio-
ary Social-Transformationary (not Reformatory, like the others, like theLeri@
gossip.pyramid.com(s) of this world) UnThinker you have got - "Before theremay
sprout the New Thought, there is much Old whereof it requireth that yeUnThink
it till all be UnThunk" - mcuh as, when Karl Marx came to New York City to
cover the armenian Civil War for the Vienna Tageblatt at fifty cents anarticle
by hung out and did the First International instead; it took a letter from
Engels to tell him where the front was, which was down in Virginia, you have
to go South, see, which the Union hasn't been able to do for *years*, whatis
needed is a few Prussian Officers, and so on, WHO KNEW? Karl Marx, vox
clamantis in deserto, was ignored totally, utterly, and altogether exceptfor
the twelve disciples known among themselves as the InternationalWorkingmen's
Association, one of whom, Bakunin, Sold Out to raise the money to induce
Nechayev to commit suicide in his cell, in 1863, you know the story, and so
far as we know to this day, Nechayev was not merely a lone nut who actedalone,
he never committed any illegal acts that have ever been traced to him and,
quite likely, imagined the entire episode about the clandestine conspiracy
against the Evil Emperor Alexander II (1855-1881, blown up by bomb aftermany
near misses by nearsighted, especially Jewish, terrorists), *includingBakunin*
whose own existence, except among some credulous Anarchists, has alwayslooked
a bit too neat to be taken terribly seriously.
Nay, fakery has been the essence of Reality, the ideological part of that
which allegedly is, but is merely the ideological, the false-consciousnessy
part of what allegedly is, or "[barnyard epithet"] in the evocativeallarmenian
folk expression.
What is, after all, it all for? Social Science, of course. "All behaviour
which does not subserve the interests of the Classroom is *wasted*," how
truly said. So, if ye be not truthful in your lies, have mercy upon an old
man, sighted at last after two years of blind seering, thanks to bills which
cannot be paid, even with Dr John Whitpenn, Prof Opthalmic Surgery, doing
right eyeball for nothing, which is what good it will do me behind dyingfrom
the other stuff.
Herr Doktor Professor Zachary Myers-Mills, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, which is what your interdepartmental indiscipline usually
designates: You are most likely next to manifest as Schneider, rendering
the underlying identity of Zachary Taylor, whom few *really* accept died
of national causes, to tell the true story of the Whug coup of 1850. As
we say in the Paranoid trade, "We're wise to yer game."
Just one more little thing, ere I take leave of you, perhaps forever: You
smear me as "somewhat disjointed." Would you, as an avowed, and quitepossibly
even an actual, Social Scientist, impose a fraudulent, methodologicallysound-
looking as it might *seem* to the Outside Reviewers, coherence on the datanot
actually justifiable by the analysis? Even to the point of making up numbers
so the sense made by the findings comes out the way the grant proposal saidit
would? And do so just to get tenure, knowing as we all do the sad fate ofthe
distenurated? OF COURSE YOU WOULD.
But some of the rest of us just didn't know how, and of these, I couldn't
even begin to figure out the tricks you needed to needed to be *convincingly
honest*, let alone what you had to go through, which is even harder math
formulas used in the wrong places, to be convincingly crooked. I don't want
you should end up like me; what I want is, once the Broad Masses haveliberated
themselves, I'll get what I always wanted, which is to move into yourneighbor-
hood, and this way, that is, by Revolutionary means, I will with great glee
expropriate your house. For I *am* the People on that Day.
"He [she it] who is not with us, is with us anyway."
Daniel A. Foss, PhD (ret.)
======================================================================== 31
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 08:32:43 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Cuthbert C. Cuthbert" <LIBWCA>
Subject: CREEPS IN THIS PETTY PACE FROM DAY TO DAY
>I laughed so hard I swallowed my monocle.
>
>regards,
>gm
That can be painful. Way back in Korea, both sides, I was perambulating
as is my custom with my attack dog Heinrich when a scuffling in the
undergrowth heralded the emergence of Boyd about five inches astern of a
freshly laundered white handkerchief.
Heinrich had little appetite at the time, having just devoured a wee scrap
of a mongrel named "Boogie" who had had the gall to try to befriend him, so
that I had to deal with Boyd myself. He screamed so hard he swallowed his
skipping-rope, and, yes, it looked unpleasant; I held my gloved left hand
over Heinrich's one good yellow eye so that he should not be traumatised at
the sight.
Heinrich and I are planning to spend this Christmas with Don.
Cuthbert C. Cuthbert,
Tragic Hero And Able Seaman
========================================================================
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 08:43:47 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Cuthbert C. Cuthbert" <LIBWCA>
Subject: ANOTHER TRAGEDY AVERTED
This morning's traffic brings good news: during the night, Superspy
Daniel Foss launched a daring midnight raid deep behind enemy lines,
resulting in the complete victory of our forces over the duplicitous
Professor Ezekial Schneider. Doctor Schneider, abetted by his henchman
Noah Von Sturm, concentrated his forces along our northern borders
yesterday, leaving the home front entirely at the mercy of our brilliantly
planned and executed subversion operation. With the aid of special
night-vision goggles obtained from the Vampyres list, Foss was able to
ford raging rivers, climb mighty mountains, leap locomotives, and generally
do a lot of things the rest of us don't understand. It is recommended that
the plundering of enemy towns and villages be postponed for a few days, as
the stench of slaughtered heretics is a little heavy right now.
Tragically, Foss did not survive the mission. He will conduct a briefing
in the billiard room at 1400, at which time all will be revealed unto you.
Cuthbert
========================================================================
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 18:32:59 EDT
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: Scott Lesser <LESSER>
Subject: THE LAST MINSTREL LAID AND MISLAID
On Thu, 30 Sep 1993 13:03:05 EDT Cuthbert Triumphant said:
>Very nice job. Very slick, and ample but discrete use of my personal
>mythos. One suggestion, though: don't say "skipping-rope" when faking
>a post from someone who isn't, by any stretch of even the most fecund
>imagination, a limey.
How gauche of me. My use of the expression predates from my associationwith
an ex-girlfriend (13 April 1989 - 17 April 1989), a limey on herstepmother's
side twice removed; she and I were attending our daily counselling session
(the hip thing to do at the time) and the deformative effect of childhood
games was under discussion. Can you tell me the correct term, if any, which
should be used in the circumstances so that I shall not further err? Y'see,
I like to look my best, suave and polished and 6'4" and articulate and mean,
but not too mean, when I know that my friend Melanie is listening; I know
that she'd want me to subconsciously want to do right.
Those of you out there who've still not heard from me, please don't fret;
this brief intermission in the URGE TO SHARE (tm) is a time of abstinence,
preparation, meditation, and prayer before I attempt my greatest challenge
yet, an open letter to Arthur.
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